Beyond the NHS: Unlocking Value in the UK Private Healthcare Sector

​Here, Charlotte Harding (Consultant – Market Access, Petauri Evidence) explores the evolving landscape of UK healthcare, and the private healthcare sector in particular, where a dramatic rise in consumer-led decision-making is reshaping access, delivery, and market dynamics. This article explains how Pharma and Medtech innovators need to rethink their approach as more patients actively choose and fund their own care outside of and/or in collaboration with traditional NHS pathways. It’s a shift that’s reshaping access dynamics and demands a fresh look at how value is communicated across settings.

The Rise of Self-Funded Patients

The NHS remains the backbone of UK healthcare, delivering large-scale services across a diverse population. Yet, as demand intensifies and system pressures persist, many patients are seeking alternative routes to timely, personalised support. There is an increased demand for private access in key areas such as weight management, menopause, mental health, and preventative diagnostics.

Private providers are stepping in to complement NHS service provisions, offering fast access and tailored experiences. This reflects a broader shift: individuals are proactively managing their health and willing to invest in convenient, consumer-friendly interventions that bypass traditional wait times and access barriers.

For Pharma, this marks a meaningful evolution in the access landscape. Whilst NHS commissioning continues to play a central role, the private healthcare sector is emerging as a commercially viable and increasingly attractive route for patient access. With more patients self-funding care, industry must now navigate an increasingly consumer-led environment defined by responsiveness, privacy, and a demand for personalised services.

Private clinics, digital platforms, and prescribing services in retail pharmacies are now central to how patients navigate care. Pharma and Medtech innovators are well-positioned to collaborate with diagnostics providers and private prescribers to build integrated, patient-centric pathways that reflect this new reality.

Consumer-led Care: GLP-1s in Focus

Demand for weight loss therapeutics is reshaping traditional access models. Glucagon-like peptide-1s (GLP-1s) have surged in popularity, driven by media coverage, celebrity endorsements, and real-world outcomes. In 2025(1):

• 1.6 million UK adults reported using a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) for weight loss
• Over 900,000 people accessed treatments privately, outside of NHS channels
• 3.3 million people expressed interest in starting treatment within the next year

Private clinics and online platforms offer rapid access with self-referral. With these changes, Pharma need to reframe their approach to access, pricing, and messaging. As with NHS services, it also highlights the potential for digital solutions and self-care portals to deliver essential wrap-around support directly to patients, helping to address gaps in continuity and personalised care.

What this means for industry: Pharma must evolve its value propositions to reflect the realities of a dual-channel system. Success in the private sector hinges on enabling stakeholders, such as pharmacies with extended offerings (both in person and online), to communicate value directly to consumers. That means moving beyond traditional clinical narratives to embrace messaging around lifestyle impact, speed, and personal agency.

Menopause, Mental Health, and Preventative Diagnostics: Expanding Private Demand

Weight loss is just the beginning. Similar patterns are emerging across other therapeutic areas:

• Menopause care is accelerating. In a 2025 Menopause Mandate survey of 30,000 women, 89% cited brain fog as a major symptom, and 1 in 3 had paid privately for support (2). With consultations often exceeding £300, demand for personalised hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and diagnostics is rising
• Mental health services are also seeing a surge in private demand. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism assessments are increasingly sought outside the NHS, where wait times can exceed 2 years. Clinics have reported sharp rises in referrals and online searches, with private prescribing of ADHD medication becoming more common (3,4)
• Preventative diagnostics including self-pay blood panels, genetic screening, and wellness profiling are gaining traction. In 2024, 1.1 million private scans and diagnostics were performed, with uptake highest among 30–49-year olds (5)
• Annual wellness checks are becoming a mainstream self-pay service. Providers like Bupa UK and BlueCrest Wellness have reported rising demand for personalised health medical observation and testing (MOT). In 2025, uptake surged among working-age adults seeking early detection, lifestyle optimisation, and continuity of care outside NHS services (5-7)
• Vaccinations also reflect this momentum. Pharmadoctor delivered over 10,000 private Covid jabs in 2 months in 2024, demonstrating that consumers are seeking control and continuity amid evolving eligibility and regional variation (8)

What this means for industry: Pharma, along with those offering diagnostics and early interventions, may need to widen its market access lens, placing greater emphasis on private sector partnerships, integrated care pathways, and value narratives that speak directly to today’s more empowered, consumer-minded patients. This isn’t just a response to NHS pressures – it reflects a deeper shift in patient expectations and behaviours. As self-funding becomes more common, the question is whether this trend will extend into other high-impact disease areas, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, and how prepared industry is to meet that demand.

Private Healthcare: A Mainstream Market Access Channel

The UK private healthcare market is undergoing structural transformation. Valued at £12.4 billion in 2023, it’s projected to exceed £13.8 billion by 2025, driven by rising demand for timely, personalised care.

In 2024:

• 939,000 private hospital admissions marked the fourth consecutive year of growth (9)
• Private medical insurance (PMI) admissions rose 6% year-on-year, with strong uptake in London, Wales, and Northern Ireland (9)
• Self-pay procedures remained 30% above pre-pandemic levels (10)

What this means for industry: This is no longer a niche, it’s a mainstream shift. Patients are actively funding care to bypass delays, access innovation, and receive services on their own terms. Pharma and Medtech innovators must map private pathways alongside NHS commissioning, ensuring pricing, positioning, and channel strategies reflect hybrid access realities.

Redefining Access: Pharma’s Role in an Increasingly Consumer-Led Healthcare Era

Consumer-led healthcare is fundamentally reshaping service engagement, particularly in areas such as weight management, menopause, mental health, and preventative diagnostics. Patients are no longer passive recipients of care – they’re informed, selective, and increasingly willing to invest in services that reflect their values and expectations. This shift isn’t just a trend, it signals a structural redefinition of how healthcare is accessed, delivered, and experienced.

Pharma market access teams need to rethink how they deploy familiar tools in a healthcare landscape that is becoming increasingly hybrid and patient driven. This shift doesn’t always mean reinventing the wheel, but it does require a considered refresh of existing materials to reflect new care models, evolving funding flows, and a broader set of decision-makers shaping access.

Crafting market access materials for a shifting landscape:

• Value proposition – Reframe for private stakeholders to emphasise convenience, lifestyle impact, and speed
• Pathway mapping – Identify NHS bottlenecks and private sector entry points across therapeutic areas
• Pricing and willingness-to-pay research – Understand what patients value and are willing to self-fund
• Service models for private providers – Develop comprehensive, flexible, and user-friendly frameworks that clearly illustrate potential treatment costs and adapt these to patient’s unique care journeys

At Petauri Evidence, we’ve helped clients adapt to this shift by conducting pricing research, refining value propositions, and developing private market access models. Our strategic outputs connect NHS commissioning with private sector realities anchored in evidence, informed by consumer insight, and built for real-world impact.

Ready to Rethink Access?

If you’re exploring how to position your offering in this changing landscape, whether through pricing research, consumer insight, or strategic messaging, we’d be delighted to collaborate. We bring expertise in bridging NHS and private market realities, ensuring your strategy reflects where patients are headed, not just where they’ve been.

To start a conversation, reach out to the team at Petauri Evidence, email evidence@petauri.com.

---

References

1. Jackson SE, Brown J, Llewellyn C, Mytton O, and Shahab L. Prevalence of use and interest in using glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists for weight loss: a population study in Great Britain. medRxiv. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.06.25329114.
2. Menopause Mandate. National Survey of Menopause Experiences. 2025. Available from: https://menopausemandate.com. Accessed: 22 August 2025.
3. Hignett K. Private ADHD Assessments Soar As Public Services Struggle In England. 2025. Available from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehignett/2024/10/21/private-adhd-assessments-soar-as-public-services-struggle-in-england/. Accessed: 22 August 2025.
4. Wellbeing News. UK sees 900% rise in searches for private autism diagnoses, as many call for transformative change to address assessment backlog. 2023. Available from: https://wellbeingnews.co.uk/news/uk-sees-900-rise-in-searches-for-private-autism-diagnoses-as-many-call-for-transformative-change-to-address-assessment-backlog/. Accessed: 22 August 2025.
5. Independent Healthcare Provider Network. Over 1.1 million private diagnostic scans and tests delivered last year. 2025. Available from: https://www.ihpn.org.uk/news/new-ihpn-analysis-shows-over-1-1m-private-diagnostic-scans-tests-delivered-last-year/. Accessed: 22 August 2025.
6. BlueCrest Wellness. Demand for annual health checks continues to rise, with personalised MOT packages ranging from £229 to over £1,000. 2025. Available from: https://www.bluecrestwellness.com/article/annual-health-checks. Accessed: 27 August 2025.
7. Bupa UK. Health assessments tailored to different life stages and goals, with packages ranging from £229 to over £1,000. 2025. Available from: https://www.bupa.co.uk/health/health-assessments. Accessed: 27 August 2025.
8. Bawden T. Soaring demand for private Covid jabs sees rollout expanded. 2024. Available from: https://inews.co.uk/news/health/demand-private-covid-jabs-rollout-expanded-3055402. Accessed: 22 August 2025.
9. GoPrivate.com. UK private healthcare sees record demand: 2025 figures. 2025. Available from: https://www.privatehealth.co.uk/blog/uk-sees-record-demand/. Accessed: 28 August 2025.
10. PHIN. March 2025 private healthcare market update. 2025. Available from: https://www.phin.org.uk/news/phin-private-market-update-march-2025-united-kingdom. Accessed: 28 August 2025.